


Familiar

by InkDemonApologist (MTTapologist)



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe, JDS Escape AU, Post-Canon, idk theyre doing their best, is this fluff????? hurt comfort??????, religious trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25854361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MTTapologist/pseuds/InkDemonApologist
Summary: They may be out of the Studio, but Sammy hasn't let old habits go, to Jack's dismay.
Relationships: Jack Fain/Sammy Lawrence
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the Escape AU I've been pondering! A bunch of the crew escaped the Studio, restored but changed, and have to figure out how to readjust. One day I'll have a solid collection of info on it but [until then here's some assorted thoughts and sketches on my tumblr!](https://inkdemonapologist.tumblr.com/tagged/Escape-AU/chrono)

Strike the match carefully, so your fingers don't catch. Light the candles, quick and precise. There was an order to light them in, there was a soft song hummed alongside it. 

It was familiar. Sammy still liked the smell of smoke long after he quit, but in the abandoned Studio it had become something different; a comfortable routine, one of the few times the ink inside him didn't cry out so loudly, didn't press him with demands and guilt and fear and the desperate need for devotion.

He knew he was doing the right thing.

Only, now...

Sammy put out the match, though it would not light on his fingers if it got too close. The candles were arranged in front of nothing, but he knelt before them anyway. The mask couldn't sit over his face properly without obscuring his vision and pressing into his nose, so it was pushed up and to the side; he could see what he was doing through its mouth.

The god, the monster these candles were meant to revere was gone, was false, was never listening in the first place. He pulled the mask down a little. Unsteady breaths took in the smell of the candles and hands clasped hard to suppress their shaking. He didn't pray, strictly speaking; at most, a whispered "please" that was never directed to anyone specific nor clarified in any way.

There was no reason for any of it. There was no ink in his mind. But the guilt and the fear and the need remained.

"...UH. ...Sammy...?"

He tensed and froze at the voice in the doorway, his eyes darted in that direction but couldn’t see much and processed nothing. He knew he was caught and his instincts poised to run, scrambling off the floor but there wasn't anywhere safe, there was nowhere small enough to hide and Jack's wheelchair blocked the entire do---

Oh, Jack.

_ OH. JACK. _

He seized up again. He was caught, Jack knew now, would he be punished, should he hide it, no it's too late to hide it, what was his lie -- now that the thinking part of his mind had switched on and he had to make an actual decision, he could not get any part of him to settle on an action and stood perfectly still, backed up to the wall, mask still too far over his eyes to make out Jack's expression.

"Sam, you, uh... you there?" The voice was... careful. Unsure how lucid his friend was.

"...in a room-sharing situation, it's considered polite to  _ knock _ ." Sammy huffed and reached back to pull off the mask with an irritated grumble, then dropped lightly to the floor to put out the candles.

There was a sharp sigh from Jack. Sammy couldn't tell if it was angry or relieved.

He wheeled into the room, stopping off to the side of the makeshift shrine, thoughtful enough to not block Sammy in, and watched quietly as the musician snuffed out flames between his fingers and gathered the candles, with his mask and a small pack of matches, and started shoving everything into the bottom drawer of their dresser. He would need to hide it all later, now that Jack knew it was here. Wavy blond hair fell into his eyes, pulled askew by the mask, but he could feel his face heating up underneath, self-conscious and nervous. He didn't have to explain himself. What explanation did he even have?

"So… what's this?"

Sammy fell still and silent for a long moment. "....it used to give me clarity. I'd hoped it still would."

There was an uncomfortable wincing "ehhhh" from Jack as he smoothed his moustache and put his thoughts together. "Sammy.... are you still hearing from that fella?"

He shook his head, stiff and mechanical.

Jack did not look comforted. 

"I wasn't praying," he snapped, though it had all the bite of an injured animal. "Just... doing something familiar."

"Gotta be honest, I wish you wouldn't." Jack's voice came out strangely quiet, and Sammy looked up, surprised, and regretted it immediately at the mix of fear and worry in Jack's eyes. He'd seen that expression before, more than fifteen years ago, when Jack found him in the sewers, when he was unable to keep the mania out of his own face, gaunt and sick and sweating ink.

"This is why we shouldn't room together," Sammy hissed, eyes back down as he shoved the drawer shut. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just lighting candles."

"Lighting candles? You're kneeling at a, a, a shrine in our room and telling me it's not for the demon, while you're still wearing that thing's mask. You think I can’t tell that’s fishy?" Jack threw up a hand, exasperated. "You want Wally to catch you in here instead? Henry?"

"Henry  _ gave _ me the mask!" It came out sharper and louder than he'd expected, and he immediately recoiled, looking down, a hand raised to shield his eyes. "Henry knows," he mused softly. Soft like the voice he used to use when the band had exactly one take to get this right before he snapped. Like the voice he used to use when he walked the abandoned halls. He looked up, past Jack, to nothing in the distance. "Everyone who escaped the Studio needs something to protect them. Who protected you, Jack?"

"Hah," Jack said, "You did."

Sammy nodded, gaze still looking out at something that wasn’t there. "And Allison? And Connor."

"Each other. She's good with weapons and he packs a punch."

"Susie?"

"Alice,” he said, a wince in his voice. “Didn't do a great job, though."

"And the one who used to be Boris?" Sammy had not heard anyone use an actual name on that kid since they'd escaped.

“Buddy?” Jack paused, thoughtful for a moment. "Resourceful kid, I guess, but you know... call me biased, but I think writing that book saved him. He had a purpose, a reason to keep trying."

Sammy finally dropped his head to look the other man in the eyes; his own eyes intense, pale blue and wide. The madness the Studio left him with hadn't dulled his gaze one bit. "And what of the shepherd, my sheep? My protection, and my purpose."

Jack sighed softly. "This godawful religion."

“And my flock is gone and my saviour is false. I have nothing!” Sammy’s carefully spoken words grew sharper and sharper. Something hurt and angry vibrated underneath his voice. “I gave  _ everything _ to that monster, and now I must find pieces of myself in the wreckage!”

“You’re getting a little prophet-y,” Jack interjected, in the tone of voice you’d use to let a friend know they’d left a button unbuttoned or got something in their teeth. 

Sammy stopped, blinked, and slumped forward with a frustrated sigh. 

“Look… yeah, you got hit hard. But you’ve got to find a new purpose here.”

“I am  _ trying, _ ” Sammy hissed.

And that could be the end of it. They’d played this out before, and it could play out the same again -- Jack worried, aware there was a problem but unable to see the reason, Sammy’s empty promises as he hid ink in his desk, demanding privacy that Jack was loathe to deny, and Jack would leave him be, trying his best to keep his worry shut up in his own head. 

He didn’t particularly care for the ending of that path, but a different ending meant… this needed to go differently.

“...Jack.” Sammy had not stood up, still kneeling in front of the closed drawer of their dresser, hands clasped and fidgeting, head bowed so that his hair hid his face. “I am... frightened of Bendy. I’m not really free of Him. He doesn’t speak to me any longer, but I hear a ghost of Him anyway; I don’t want to call out in a way He would hear. But… I have to do something to quiet my mind. The mask is safe,” he whispered. “The candles are safe. Let me have a respite.”

The other man frowned in thought. Silence stretched; not uncomfortably. It was needed.

“Yeah,” Jack said finally. “Yeah. I got you, Sam.”

Slowly, he came up beside him, hesitantly offered a hand on his shoulder, and Sammy took it, reaching up to lace his own fingers into Jack’s, leaning his head against the arm of Jack’s chair. He shouldn’t. The times when they held onto each other like this were gone, a foggy memory of a time before ink, when Jack would pull him down from fits and spiralling thoughts and back into music.

But it was familiar.


End file.
